


Blossoming Terror

by FieryScribe



Series: Terrors [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017), Riverdale (TV 2017) RPF
Genre: Cheryl Blossom Beneath Her Mask, Haunted Cheryl Blossom, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Stalking, hbic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 18:24:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18628765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FieryScribe/pseuds/FieryScribe
Summary: Gilded Terror - Chapter One of the Blossoming Terror seriesAfter Cheryl's icy rebirth from Sweet Water River she finds herself still haunted by the past and the long reach of Nick St. Clair.





	1. Gilded Terror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the days when life finally seems golden again Cheryl Blossom rapidly discovers that when the sun goes down her demons come out to play.

The air smelled warm and heady like amber and leather with a hint of spice that she could have sworn was cinnamon. The light around her was a beautiful golden haze as though the world had a radiant aura that it would allow her to bask in like sunlight. She was aware of the sensation of her resplendent silk evening gown cascading over her figure, teasing gentle caresses against her calves. There was a warmth that filled her and clouded her and for the barest of moments the world held no pain, no sadness, or loss and while it was all slightly out of focus that seemed like a perfectly acceptable compromise to her. 

In this heaven, this bliss, she existed drifting gladly from one weightless step to the next and relishing in the wonder and the freedom; she would have been glad to go on for an eternity as she was. There were glasses of pink champagne on gleaming golden trays that seemed to float by her reflected in the wall of towering mirrors on her left. The mirrors themselves were as grand as the gold filigree and gleaming marble that surrounded them, as delicate as the music, not quite piano, that played through that gilded hall. If the resplendent and iconic mirrors hadn’t been enough the beauty of the ethereal music that called to her from a time of kings and grandeur certainly was; she knew what hall she walked, knew where she was...Versailles. 

She walked The Hall of Mirrors in what was once the palace of The Sun King and later of Marie Antoinette...poor trapped and misunderstood Marie... 

The thought was enough to jar her to the realization that she wasn’t floating through the great halls of Versailles she was trapped in a guided cage, shackled by etiquette,

“Cheryl...”

and hunted by the devil. 

All of the warmth remained but leaden anxiety took the place of her weightlessness and gripping terror replaced her joyous sense of freedom. The beautiful light that had surrounded her went out in an instant to leave her in the dark hall, with dimly lit chandeliers above, stumbling and tripping as she ran. She ran with that too sweet voice calling after her but no matter her speed or determination she could not seem to leave what had been that once gleaming hall of mirrors. She ran through shadow, she ran until she felt her elegant heels begin to wear at the skin on her feet, knowing all the while that the devil who had cast the shadow she must endure was not far behind. 

“Cheryl...”

She could feel tears, that she fought to hold behind her usually impeccable mask of calm, run in hot streams down her flushed cheeks, she could feel her shoes tearing through her skin and blood seeping between her toes. She ran until the warm, slick, blood of her battered feet seeped from the soles of her shoes and turned the marble floor beneath her to a crimson rink that she slid and skidded on. She could feel him behind her looming ever closer, that refined gentlemanly voice practically in her ear. 

Nick St. Clair. 

It took only the brush of his fingers against her back to send her tumbling towards that slick crimson floor. She could feel herself falling in a moment that seemed to slow in the usual flow of time granting her just long enough for the terror of what she faced to truly sink in. Just as the floor rushed up to meet her she felt it begin to fade. 

In a tangle of wild copper tresses and satin sheets, and to the sound of her own frantically beating heart, she sat bolt upright in bed to find herself as always in her own bedroom with the sunlight streaming in her window.  
It was another day, just like the one before it, and as soon as her uneven breathing calmed, along with her racing heart, she began to search for the pieces of herself or rather the mask within her to slip back in place.


	2. Beautiful Terror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She thought that the only place that her personal devil could haunt her anymore was in her dreams but she was wrong.

The images lingered in her mind’s eye as if they were true memories, as if only a half an hour earlier she had walked the gleaming halls of the Palace of Versailles; the taste of champagne was still vibrant in her mouth long after she had brushed her teeth. Though she dressed as impeccably as ever, in boots that would make any girl jealous, she could still feel the sticky warmth of blood between her toes and the flesh on her feet torn from shoes she was not meant to run in. Above all other sensations was the one that seemed to resonate through every inch of her body as well as her mind, that voice that was too sweet and too kind and far too mannerly for the monster it belonged to: Nick. 

. . .Cheryl. . .

She shook her head gently twice to be rid of the sound of it, the sound of him so that as she made her way down the cherry wood staircase of her Nana’s home so that it was the outwardly cool and collected Cheryl Blossom that greeted her mother. 

“Will you be joining us for breakfast, Cheryl?”  
Shorter on patience than usual Cheryl’s large, brown, doe eyes rolled dramatically at her equally dramatic mother.  
“No there is no us mother, you may set the table for JJ and Daddy but they aren’t here!”

There was an almost undetectable hint of resentment on her lilting voice, resentment borne of the thought that if her father had not so callously ripped her brother, her only real family and the only one who had ever truly understood and loved her, from life she might not be daily living ghostly memories of violent dreams. 

“Cheryl! They are still with us and you will be respectful.”  
“Fine you psycho. No I’m not hungry. Now may I leave?”  
Arms crossed and head tilted expectantly to the side she watched her mother go through her usual stages of outrage that ranged from a disappointed shake of her head, a roll of her eyes, a scoff, and the an injured tone that didn’t quite touch sincerity but a harsh one that managed to cut all the same. 

“You always were an entitled, selfish, brat. Have it your way; go to school where you can delude yourself that you have anyone who actually cares.”

Penelope was in rare form that morning and Cheryl still felt raw enough from the nightmare — that remained feeling like a true memory of moments lived not long ago — that her mother’s words managed to cut to the bone. She said nothing in response only took the last few steps and brushed passed her viper of a mother to yank open the front door and stop.

“What is this?”

Before on her doorstep lay one very fresh, long stemmed, immaculate white rose bearing a red satin ribbon in the form of an equally immaculate bow tied around the stem. She felt her mother at her side moments before she heard her gentle scoff. 

“Clearly it’s a gift you ridiculous child.”  
“You think? Thank you mother, I would never have guessed. Was it there when you got the paper?”  
“Obviously not you dimwit.”  
It wasn’t her mother’s insult that pursed her perfectly stained crimson lips it was the thought that a fresh rose had been deposited on her front doorstep sometime in the last half hour at most, sometime just after she had woken up. 

Before her mother had the chance to she knelt and picked up the mysterious flower. It looked like a normal rose and as she lifted it to inhale it’s sweet scent it smelled like a normal rose. It was only as she began to move it to hand it off to her mother that she caught another scent, it was subtle and warm like amber with warm musky undertones that saw her pass off that rose as if it had burned her. 

“Take it, it’s obviously not mine.” Her voice was casual, nonchalant even, but only so to those who did not truly listen and hear the subtle way her words were rushed. 

She wanted to run, run back upstairs to shower for an hour and then climb into her four poster bed and not leave for a month, she wanted some sense of knowing she was absolutely secure and safe but deep down she had a sickening and sinking feeling that she wouldn’t be that, even in her own home. With a thought that school and constant, if not annoying, company would be the best place for her she strode out of the doorway, head held high, and with the facade of Riverdale’s Head Bitch In Charge mostly in place. 

 

Despite a growing sense of unease and the subtle scent of Nick St. Clair’s cologne still clinging to her, from the whiff of it she had caught off the crimson ribbon, she refused to be seen as anything approaching weak or afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a solo piece but I found that the story kept evolving in my mind over time. Two chapters are written but more will be forthcoming. 
> 
> This is my first multi part and multi chapter work so please be kind.
> 
> My intention is to eventually write out the Terror series with stories of the various terrors in life that the citizens of Riverdale face.


End file.
